Research on the Drilling Property of Titanium Alloys by Quasi-continuous-wave Laser

The velocity of the surface airflow is an important factor for laser machining. A laser drilling experimental platform of titanium alloy, with 0~0.2Ma airflow, is established totest the machining efficiency feature. AQuasi-Continuous-Wave (QCW) pulsed Nd: YAG laser with the max power up to 2000 W is used as the drilling source, operating at a repetition rate of 400 Hz and pulse duration of 200μs. The purpose of our study was to relate the environment condition and the parameters of the laser to the machining efficiency. Analysis wasmade in this paper for the high machining efficiency feature by QCW laser compared to the CW laser. Experimental results show thathigher machining efficiency is caused by higher airflow rate, which would benefit for the performance of lasermachining.